An Arthurian Princess In Reseda
by LucyCrewe11
Summary: What happened to Princess Katey after the events of the first movie? Where was she during Calvin's adventures in Aladdin's Palace? A one-shot about a princess trying to fit into modern-day life alongside her aging father, formerly known as King Arthur. Mentioned pairings: Katey/Calvin; Sherry/Calvin; Sarah/Kane.


**AN: You know how some writers try to tap into their inner child? Well I try to get mine to shut the heck up. It doesn't work. She insists that I, as her adult counterpart, answer all her questions about books and movies she's always loved. Even if they're older, corny, and no one ever bothers to write fanfiction for them. **

**For a few years now she's been pestering me me to write a story about why Katey from _A Kid in King Arthur's Court_ isn't in the sequel _A Kid in Aladdin's Palace_, snorting at my 'grown up' explanation that they probably just couldn't get the actress back. My excuse was always "I don't know what to write!" Alas, an idea actually popped onto my head the other day and sure enough there was my inner child, tapping her foot, going, "Ha! Now write!" **

**So I have. **

**Here you go, younger me, a story about Princess Katey. Now shut up already, will you? LOL. **

An Arthurian Princess In Reseda

A one-shot by LucyCrewe11

Katey looked over her shoulder to make sure the lock on the apartment door she'd just shut was properly turned, latched shut, before she picked up the tea kettle.

Not that it mattered; neither the door nor the lock itself was very strong, anyone could break it down if they really wanted to. But she'd learned the hard way that when she didn't at least_ try_ to bar them out, their strange, rowdy neighbors from across the hall liked to just walk in, and sometimes they took things out with them.

It didn't seem to matter that they were still_ in_ the apartment during this absurd style of robbery.

And the way Katey saw it, bare as their place was, they couldn't stand to have anything else stolen just now. They'd already lost the toaster she'd picked up for fifty cents at a yard sale that way. If the stove hadn't been nailed down and the fridge (which really only worked half the time anyway) hadn't been quite so heavy, they'd probably have lost those too.

The lock was turned correctly. Nodding, she focused her attention on the kettle, which she filled with water.

She would have called for her father, to tell him she was home from school, but he always took a nap around three or four o'clock, and she didn't like to wake him since he often slept so poorly at night. So if the noise of the squeaky lock turning didn't rouse him, she usually just let him be.

Setting the kettle on the small counter, Katey started up the stove. It had taken a long time for her to get used to the way the flame suddenly appeared after just a few short,_ tick, tick, tick_s. She'd hardly ever lit her own fires back home in Camelot. The only times she would bother were after she'd used the secret passageways behind them, either for returned warmth or for concealment of the fact that she'd left her chambers without permission.

The way those fires started hadn't been anything like this.

But those days were over.

Katey had to accept that, here in Reseda, she wasn't Princess Katherine, Daughter of the great King Arthur.

The only person in this place who knew the truth never came around anymore. Certainly she did her part now to avoid him.

_Calvin._ The thought of him still made Katey's chest tighten automatically, her heart burning. _Aching_, her sister Sarah would have corrected her. Not heartburn, heart_ache_.

Oh, how Katey missed Sarah! If only there was some way to send word to her from this place! Not a day went by when she didn't wonder how Sarah, now a queen, and her husband -the newly crowned King Kane- were doing. She imagined they were very happy, though.

Much happier than she herself was most of the time.

So willingly she and her father had left them behind for Calvin's sake. Her father was old, ready to step down and let his precious eldest daughter, the one most like their mother, so beautiful and regal and brave, rule in his place along side her well-chosen husband. The people of Camelot were more than ready for this change. For so long they had revered the black knight, who they now knew the true identity of. It was that knight they wanted to rule now, not Arthur. Their days of loving him had been revived, but not in the way they'd once been.

They no longer hated him, but neither did they have need for him any longer.

With that in mind, it had not been a difficult choice for Arthur to put his youngest daughter's wishes first. He knew how she'd felt about the young man from Reseda; knew how much she missed him now that Merlin had used the Well of Destiny to send him home. Of course Arthur approved whole-heartedly of the match. After all, Calvin was a knight of Camelot, of the very round table the clever young lad had suggested; Arthur had dubbed the boy himself. He'd been ready even to give him Sarah's hand, for all he had done for Camelot. The boy would have become king.

But, alas, he was not keen.

He barely knew Sarah, he'd pointed out, and he wanted to go home.

Besides, his little Katherine was in love with him. It wouldn't have done at all to wed his youngest daughter's suitor to the eldest.

Naturally he'd decided to implore Merlin's remaining soul in the well to send them -Arthur and his youngest daughter- through time, to this mysterious land of Reseda where the good knight Calvin Fuller resided.

Katey still remembered how happy she'd been to arrive just as Calvin was hitting a home run on the baseball field.

Happier still at his delighted expression when he recognized her.

If only that happiness had lasted a while longer.

At first, it hadn't mattered one bit that Katey was different from everyone else in Reseda; that was what Calvin _liked_ about her.

Slowly, though, it became more apparent and problematic.

The other kids laughed at how she accidentally slipped up and said thee and thou and thy; how she seemed to get even simple phrases they said every day wrong. Calvin tried to teach her, but she didn't seem able to get past 'bad' or 'wicked' meaning something was 'good'. That was the only one she ever got right, and even that was misused a little too often for comfort.

At least she'd mastered the art of muttering, "Dweeb," when the boys acted like jerks who reminded her more than a little of a younger Lord Belasco.

Katey was scandalized by how short some of the girls wore their skirts. She could understand -even liked- pants and shirts. Those were not so different from tunics and tights, and they were very practical. But short skirts were appalling; she always wore ankle-length ones when the occasion called for something other than pants.

This resulted in more than a few mocking remarks from the very girls whose style of dressing so shocked her.

To his credit, Calvin stood up for her, when he was around. It was for his sake and for the delights of Reseda -which had still seemed a place out of a fairy story back then- that she endured school at all.

None of the teachers were like the tutors or governesses she'd had back in Camelot.

They were too friendly, parading her in front of the other students to show off her fine reading skills, or her elegant penmanship (such utterly _perfect _cursive!), or her strength at the climbing rope. Yes, Master Kane had trained her well; she had incredible endurance and strength for her size, but what good did it do to make a great show of it?

Still, far worse were the teachers who disliked her, taking every chance to show off her supposed ignorance.

Katey would never forget the day that horrible Science teacher held up her paper in front of the class and demanded to know how anyone could be so stupid as to write down that the earth was flat.

Well, _wasn't_ it? No one had ever told Katey any different back home. She'd assumed her tutors -who said the earth was supported on the back of a turtle- knew of what they spoke.

Yet, nothing was truly awful back then, for Katey always knew, no matter what, she'd have her time after school with Calvin. For a year she went with him to baseball practice, completely accepted as part of the team. After, she supported him when he quit the team, leaving it along with him even though she secretly still wanted to play.

Instead she found herself sitting at a pizza place, where he'd just gotten his first real job. It wasn't much fun, but it was something to do with the boy she fancied. So she didn't mind. Not to mention it got a good deal more interesting when he got bumped up from kitchen boy to delivery boy. Then she got to go out with him on his bike when he dropped off the pizzas. He'd usually deliver a few pies, then drop her off at the apartment on his way back to work. It reminded Katey of their first picnic together in Camelot, in that world and time when a bike had seemed magical, not just a part of everyday life.

The kettle whistled and Katey, who had been sitting on a stool waiting for the water to boil, got up and rummaged in the almost empty cabinet for a clean bowl. Then she unwrapped the Ramen Noddles and poured the water in.

She tried not to keep thinking about Calvin. Her mind refused to obey her. It brought her back, rebelliously, to the long boring afternoons at the pizza parlor that paid for the occasional dates they got to go on when he got his homework done on time.

And it brought her back to when it all started to fall apart...

It would be easy, if Katey were a less reasonable sort of girl, to blame everything on Valerie Boushard.

Valerie was known as the Ivory Tower of Reseda High. Mainly because she was tall, ivory-skinned, and had hair even more golden than Sarah's. She also had perfect posture, each movement as graceful as a dance. This, because she took ballet.

And where did Valerie go every day after ballet class? To the very same pizza place Calvin worked, parading herself in public shamefully so their whole school could gawk at her after hours.

With her barely-there skirts and low-cut halter tops, Valerie would have been considered a shameless hussy or a lady of ill-repute back in Camelot. Here, the girls who were jealous of her -some of them her own crew, much to Katey's shock- called her worse names. Katey didn't bother. She didn't have to like the girl, but it wasn't proper to call her vile things. Princesses didn't do things like that.

For a long time, Calvin had been smitten with Valerie. Although, in all fairness, he'd never really looked twice at her until_ after_ things with Katey went sour.

So, much as she might have wanted to, Katey couldn't really turn the blame on the wretched girl.

No, things had gone bad because there had been some misunderstanding Katey hadn't foreseen.

It had never occurred to her that, even though things were different here, Calvin was not still _her_ knight. Almost her betrothed, practically. They called it 'going out' here; boyfriend and girlfriend.

But she'd been sure it meant the same thing.

Until one early evening at the pizza place when, sitting in a booth with Calvin who was taking a break, she spoke from the heart about their future. About when they were married.

Calvin almost choked on the Coke he was drinking. "_Married_?"

Katey had blinked in surprise at his reaction. "Certainly I don't mean right away, or any time_ soon_. When we're older, Calvin."

"Katey..."

"It _is_ your intention to marry me eventually, is it not?" Her eyes widened. "I had thought, in a few years, perhaps..."

"I don't know if I'll like _gum_ in a few years!"

"What has gum to do with it?" Katey had asked, still in all innocence.

"I mean I don't _know_, Katey," Calvin admitted. "I don't know what I'll want in a few years. I'm just a kid."

The idea of 'dating for fun' was not a familiar one to Katey, and no one had thought to explain it to her. "But you've been courting me for a while now, and I had _assumed_..."

A rather bratty boy who used to be on the rival baseball team to Calvin's had come by at that moment, hearing Katey's last sentence. He seemed unable to resist making fun of her for it.

"Courting?" he'd laughed, leaning over the edge of the booth. "Where'd you guys park your horse and buggy, Fuller?"

Calvin scowled at him. "In front of your mom's station wagon, Baker!"

Then he left and they resumed their conversation.

"You do not wish for my hand," Katey finally realized, her expression falling.

"It's not that I don't like you," Calvin had tried to assure her. "Honest."

Katey forced a weak smile.

"I like you a lot, Katey. You're... You're amazing."

"But your intentions are not...?"

"I'm too young for...for..._intentions_..."

"You were not too young to pursue me in Camelot." She'd looked down at the table, unable to meet his eyes.

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Then there is nothing you need say, Sir." Katey stood up, swallowing hard.

"You don't want to see me anymore, do you?" Calvin asked.

"Calvin, there is nothing I want more," she said quietly. "But I cannot keep courting someone who does not intend to marry me someday."

Calvin closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. "I'm sorry, Katey."

"As am I."

"Come on," he said gently, "I'll take you home."

Katey almost told him no, that she'd walk, but she decided to accept his offer. She wasn't so sure how well she'd do walking all that way with all those tears in her eyes she was struggling to hold back. They were blinding her, and she wasn't used to the traffic in this world yet. She knew she'd get herself run over by one of those magical wheeled horseless carriages that were everywhere in this Reseda place if she didn't have some help.

Letting out the tears -letting him see, clearing her vision- was not an option.

For a short while -painfully short- Katey had held out hope that Calvin would change his mind. That, after a few days, he'd want her back, realize that of course they should marry once they were old enough -that he'd behaved rather appallingly, leading her on the way he had...

But it was in vain.

He still talked to her, still stood up for her, still even gave her a ride on his bike and brought over extra groceries, but he never spoke of getting back together.

Instead, like every other boy in their school, he too became utterly and hopelessly infatuated with Valerie.

There had been nothing to be done. Katey slipped, slowly and uncomplaining, out of Calvin's life. She didn't say a word the first couple of times he forgot to give her a ride home, and he said nothing either when she stopped coming to the pizza place after school. Or when she stopped even going by that way, or by his house, so that they wouldn't meet when they didn't have to.

Now he never came by, never saw her, never appeared even to_ think_ about her or her father.

The noodles ready, Katey carefully lifted the steaming hot bowl and carried it into her father's room (the only bedroom in the apartment), setting it at his bedside. It would be cool enough for him to eat when he woke.

She didn't feel like going to work tonight. There was a ton of homework piled as high as a horse's rear end that needed doing, but they were almost out of food. They had the noodles, some tea, and a half-loaf of bread left.

It used to be that Calvin would drop off food and help out when the cash Katey got from babysitting little kids on the weekends ran short. No longer having him to rely on, Katey had to take care of herself and get a job at Blockbuster video. The uniform wasn't so bad; at least it was modest. And as for transportation, just as her father brought the Swiss Army Knife with him, Katey had brought the old-fashioned rollerblades Calvin had made for her in Camelot. It was on these she skated to work and back each day.

She kissed her sleeping father on the forehead. "I'll be back tonight, Father."

Strapping on the skates, Katey tried not to sigh.

It had been hard for her to tell her father about Calvin. Harder still now that he knew. For he never stopped believing they'd get back together, even as the evidence piled up against this theory.

Valerie might not have been much of a good long-term opponent, having about as much brains -and interest in Calvin Fuller- as a stubborn stable horse, but Calvin wasn't with Valerie. He didn't even_ like_ her anymore.

He had a girlfriend named Sherry now.

There was something special about Sherry. She had a regality about her that none of the Reseda girls did, giving Katey the idea that Calvin had found this girl not unlike how he'd found_ her_, from another place and time.

She might even have been a princess herself.

But where Katey failed to fit in, Sherry slipped into the world like it was a glove made just for her. She didn't seem shocked by world around her, just deeply amused. She was so sure of herself that somehow she'd managed to get the other kids to stop making fun of her within a week.

And even with this piece of information the former King Arthur could not accept that anyone would choose somebody else over his precious daughter.

"He'll come back to you, Daughter," her father always said. "You shall see."

When Katey asked him how he could be so sure, her father got a faraway look in his eye and murmured something about "Lancelot".

She knew vaguely that there _had_ once been a Sir Lancelot of the Lake back home in Camelot, some years before she was born. Maybe Sarah remembered him, but she certainly didn't.

And she definitely didn't see what his name had to do with Calvin having moved on.

For her part, she knew Calvin was through with her.

Sherry was beautiful. So beautiful that Valerie looked like a toad in comparison. Katey knew she couldn't compete with that. Beautiful and not insisting, as far as she could tell, on his promise of marriage someday.

She'd seen them together at a school dance not too long ago. They'd looked, much as she hated to admit it, very much in love. Calvin hadn't even noticed her watching them, dateless, standing in the corner with the chess club.

So it was with continued resignation that Katey buttoned the front of her vest, grabbed her satchel (_purse_, she tried to remind herself, they called a woman's bag a _purse_ here), and prepared to leave.

There was hardly an hour when Katey didn't dream of going back to Camelot. But with no Well of Destiny, no Merlin, in this world... What chance was there of that?

No, she was stuck here, maybe forever.

She'd get by, though. Just like her brave aging father. Just like her mother, Guinevere. Just like brave Sarah and Kane.

She, Princess Katherine, currently of Reseda, was a survivor.

**AN: A note about Princess Katey's appearance at the end of the first movie... There has been some speculation, from fans and haters of the movie alike, as to whether it was supposed to imply she went through time (via Merlin's well) or just that there was a girl on Calvin's baseball team who looked like Katey (like the end of _Wizard of Oz_ or _The Forbidden Kingdom_). **

**My personal theory, judging not only on the first film, but also the context of the second, is that Katey did indeed time travel along with her father to Reseda. **

**Why? Because at the end of _A Kid in Aladdin's Palace_, Princess Sherry comes to Calvin's time the same way, only she is still dressed as an _Arabian Nights_ princess and even has her magic carpet in tow! If we're meant to assume Sherry could time travel thanks to the genie, why couldn't Katey have also time traveled thanks to Merlin? **

**And even if you totally disregard this information, focusing on the fact that Katey appears -for the split second she speaks at the end of A Kid In King Arthur's Court- not to have her accent or old-timey voice, you have to admit a one-shot about a time traveling princess is MUCH more interesting than a one-shot about some random girl who _looks_ like a princess who was in the main character's dream or whatever. **

**With that in mind, I have taken the liberty of making it appear, in my story, that Katey is -despite her adjustments- almost exactly the same in personality and style of speech in Reseda as she was in Camelot. **

**Am I reading too much into an old children's movie? Probably. But that's what fanfiction is FOR, my friends! LOL. **

**Please review, if so inclined. **


End file.
